Sandbox Politics~Parliament is back!

When governments lose their relevancy we must address the disease, not just the symptoms overwhelming us.

For our ultimate survival Canadians and Americans have to cultivate a more objective world view seeing the world as it is, and not through the crippled eyes of a propagandist dying empire. It is an insane notion that perpetual war will lead to any sort of salvation. It is the road to doom and isolation. In a fast changing world the West is fast falling behind squandering huge resources that should be directed at building better futures and a more just world for all—Author

When governments lose their relevancy we must address the disease, not just the symptoms overwhelming us.

Canada’s Parliament is back from its holiday break and back to dismissing the nation’s business. These are neoliberal times where everybody except the voters who pay the bills get to play. Our parliamentarians get to play in their neoliberal sandbox, and do what they want, when they want and make up their own rules.

A stated goal of neoliberalism is to denigrate and marginalize the role of governments. This has been achieved as governments of the West are no longer accountable to their electorates; but to the vested interests controlling them. The end result is that politicians suffer a great deal of redundancy, dealing only with trivial house keeping issues and awaiting further orders from the power brokers and the war mongers. Neoliberalism does a very effective job of killing off the integrity of political parties and has killed off liberalism in the West.

If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.John Ralston Saul. 

Here above JRS provides a very concise definition of neoliberalism where capitalism has been allowed to “run free” for the last half century and war mongering predatory capitalist/imperialists leave us in the crisis we are now entertaining.

As early as 1989 Canadian academic H.T. Wilson wrote his book Retreat from Governance. The retreat was into colonization, then accelerated by the arrival of neoliberalism. Now the abdication is complete and governments struggle to appear relevant as their respective ideologies are dead in the water and they are all closet neoliberals serving the ideology and the Empire’s wars.

 As neoliberalism becomes entrenched the pretensions of hollowed governments become manifest.

In spite of heavy pressure to resign our half-hearted incumbent PM clings to power with the blessing of his half-hearted party. If Canada was a functioning democracy he would be long gone. He has been on a nine year political honeymoon.

After a lackluster first term he failed to get a majority in the 2019 election, mifted at the impertinent electorate, he called another election in 2021— which was nothing more than a carbon copy of 2019.

It never occurred to the PM had he deserved a majority the voters might have granted him one. Lucky for him our broken archaic electoral system has anointed his party the default party— when there is no real choice and no evident merit voters hold their their nose and park their vote until better times.

Better times will arrive when Fair Vote Canada convinces the government to bring in proportionate representation. This is unlikely as the PM’s neoliberal masters would veto any attempt to re-democratize the country. He has also stated publically he is not going to alter a system that favors his party.

His father was well qualified to be prime minister and had the magnetism to draw strong political talent to his cabinets. The son is the very opposite. He alienated some of best ministers and staff who moved on long ago.

Where the father was a strong federalist, advocating national unity and good federal provincial relations, the son is a neoliberal errand boy. The son has demoted Canada to a “post national state”. It is a code term for neoliberalism— the stealth ideology nobody, but nobody wants to talk about.

The public discontent with the PM is so vociferous the opposition leader smells blood and is running a vendetta as the heir apparent. But he is the other side of the same coin. He is equally unqualified to lead the country and his political roots run deep with the Harper conservatives who are a spin off of the US Republicans. The opposition leader is running a fake populist/pseudo-socialist campaign to lure voters while shedding crocodile tears for an angry electorate. He pretends to be a man of the people when he is a clone of the much feared Stephen Harper the axe man who hated Canada and spent ten years dismantling it.

 Politics in Canada has become a sandbox. Politicians just play their games, throw sand in each others faces, watched over by an incredulous public and a media umpire to fat on government subsidies and eating too many corporate  chocolate bars. 

“Today, according to a recent Angus Reid poll, one in two Canadians view MPs’ work in Parliament as simply “posturing” (54 per cent) and “useless” (46 per cent), and a majority of those who closely follow the parliamentary drama say the proceedings are “dishonest” (58 percent). Canadians have seemingly lost faith in Ottawa politics.”

—Trudeau’s degradation of Parliament: Deconstructing Canada

Canada has become a laughing stock on the international stage where we can’t even run a cogent foreign policy. The PM is a buffoon when he steps on stage and our foreign affairs minister equally so. She has no qualifications for the job and is the sixth FA minister in nine years.

Trudeau has done so many cabinet shuffles none of his ministers are in their portfolios long enough to know what they are doing.

The 2025 election will be another hung parliament just like the last two as the party system in Canada is completely corrupt and in desperate need of democratic reform. Our democracy is in precipitous decline, the quality of people willing to run for office follows suit. Canada is a country dancing in the ruins of neoliberalism, just like our American neighbor.

 Where money rules political integrity evaporates. 

Our media does their dance in the ruins as all they do is identify the symptoms when the pathologies are a glaring at us and begging our attention. They too have been bought and paid for becoming the sneering apologists in the debacle avoiding the real issues.

The two issues are colonization and neoliberalism. Most Canadians along with our political dregs don’t want to face these issues head on. We are a colony further reduced to a neoliberal enclave. We are living another countries existence which usurps our own. We claim nationhood but exist as a colonial satrap.

There can be no effective government where sovereignty, and the thrust of intention that goes with it are not present.

The can be no effective government where sovereignty does not exist.

As Canadian philosopher George Grant noted seventy years ago nationhood requires a “thrust of intention” that is sustainable only where effective government and true democracy prevail. There can be no pretenders to the throne.